


Soulbound

by his_valentine



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Sharing a Body
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-25 02:14:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20368960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/his_valentine/pseuds/his_valentine
Summary: Keith makes some friends of his own





	1. Chapter 1

"Shiro," Keith's voice sounded far away, and a bit scared. Shiro's eyes opened, but all he saw was darkness, which scared him a bit too. He couldn't feel any surface, and unlike anywhere else they'd been there were no distant lights to guide the way.

"Keith," Shiro called out, his own voice sounding distant even to himself. "I'm here! Where are you?"

"I don't know. I just- I can't see anything. I've been waiting for you," Keith's voice answered. Shiro strained to listen, but it almost sounded like he was closer now, more distinct.

"You're going the right way. I'm over here." Shiro called again.

"I'm not moving, not on purpose. Maybe you're the one getting closer?" Keith wondered. Now it sounded almost like if Shiro just reached out, he could grab onto the younger man.

"Shiro!" Keith startled as Shiro's hand brushed against him, moving to capture his wrist. "There you are. Right?"

"Yeah, I'm right here," Shiro breathed, grabbing Keith's other hand for good measure as they existed within a void.

"Good. No matter what, let's stay together, okay? I'll follow you anywhere," Keith's hands tightened as he asked.

"Of course. I never wanted you to leave me anyway," Shiro agreed readily, squeezing back. Somehow, it got darker.

* * *

"Takashi!" his mother admonished as he came out of the bathroom 5 minutes late. "I told you time was short! No McDonalds!"

Takashi frowned and glanced back as if looking at someone behind himself. His mother sighed, already knowing her son would be using his usual excuse.

"Keith wanted to make sure I washed my hair and my teeth extra good! He says you shouldn't make me rush."

"Tell Keith," she said slowly, "that sometimes you don't have all day to play in the tub. Please?"

'Could you tell your mom that I can hear her just fine?' Keith's voice asked from the back of his head, tone petulant.

Instead, Takashi argued, "We weren't playing! Can we just go? I'm ready now."

As she sent Takashi to the car and locked up their home upon her own exit, his mother murmured to herself, "I can't wait until he grows out of his imaginary friend phase."

* * *

Takashi never grew out of it. First they tried therapy, then added on psychotropics, until eventually the mental health clinic they'd been going to utterly gave up, convinced that he was making it up and just that deeply in denial of the fact. It wasn't like this 'Keith' thing had ever shown a need to be contained, anyway. If anything, Takashi's mental construct seemed solely interested in pushing him to excel.

All of the boring doctor visits where he just talked and the pills that made it harder than usual to focus on Keith's words only helped to prove, firstly, that the black-haired boy in his head was definitely real, and secondly but more importantly, that first fact had to be more of a secret.

Keith never liked being made the center of attention anyway. One doctor had attempted to use hypnosis in order to 'draw out the wayward bit of subconscious that this 'Keith' has hijacked,' but Keith had just scowled at him and crossed his arms in a very un-Takashi way until the procedure was reversed.

* * *

The knowledge that Keith could, if allowed to, make use of Takashi's body became more important as the two rode out puberty together.

Keith seemed especially fond of a game they would play, where Keith would control just Takashi's right arm and use it to pleasure both of them. He started playing around with the concept of other types of touch imposition as well after becoming acquainted with the idea.

The first time Takashi felt the lightest touch of what almost seemed like a tongue on the back of his neck as Keith's hand moved between their legs, he almost jumped in shock, even though Keith had been just planting the idea of it in Takashi's head for several minutes before it finally happened.

* * *

When Takashi was a teenager, he once asked Keith to poke him with a knife, until he bled. Eventually, curiosity overruled precaution. Keith carefully sank just the tip of a blade into Takashi, and it hurt, and for a moment he swore he could feel the trickle of blood down his side, but when he looked there was no wound and the pain faded.

He then tried it on Keith, who's reaction was much more visceral. Unlike Shiro, his injury wasn't quite so imaginary and seemed to actually need to heal, rather than it simply not be there later.

"Or maybe it is imaginary, so it only hurts me because I'm imaginary too?" Keith had joked as Shiro carefully cleaned and rebandaged the gash along his jaw later.

"This isn't funny. I don't- I didn't mean to actually hurt you."

"I don't mind," Keith had admitted quietly, eyes cast aside momentarily. Despite Shiro's care, the gash started to scar as it healed.

* * *

By now, Takashi was old enough that when people asked why he went by Shiro rather than his first name, he told them that it was more professional, rather than openly admit it was his imaginary boyfriend's favorite petname.

Shiro sighed as he tried, and failed again, to draw Keith as he appeared now to Shiro. They'd always been roughly the same age, though in recent years the growing difference in their builds made Keith look younger in comparison.

Adam, his dormmate, glanced over at the sound, eyes then falling upon the page. "Your muse, again?" he asked, teasingly. He'd been bunked with Shiro long enough to notice that he was naturally drawn towards drawing broody looking, black-haired guys. Shiro had once tried to explain the existence of Keith to him, but he'd decided that what Shiro was describing sounded like something called a 'muse.' It wasn't wrong, but it wasn't the exact right term either.

"It's always his eyes that I can't get right. I wish I could just take a picture," Shiro lamented.

"Don't you ever get bored?" Adam asked. Shiro gave him a confused look, so he continued, saying "With a lover that isn't real? No matter how perfect his eyes are, it's not like-"

Shiro felt how Keith was standing beside him now, leaning with the same pressure as a light shone against his side but just as noticeable. "He's real," Shiro stated, leaving no room for argument. Adam shrugged and went back to his own homework.

Shiro put the page aside, and got back to work himself. He'd just been warming up for a session of sketching ideas for compact stackable home units. The straight lines of his work centered and grounded him. Keith materialized more fully and hopped up onto the desk, glaring in Adam's direction before looking down to watch Shiro work.

'Don't mind him,' Shiro wasn't speaking outloud, of course. He and Keith had long ago learned to just think at one another in order to facilitate silent communication.

Keith had gotten much better at the details, somewhat naturally. His voice actually seemed to come from his mouth as it moved. "He's _flirting_ with you, you big oaf. I'm getting sick of it. I couldn't care less if he thinks I'm real or not."

'It's not like I'm planning to do anything like that,' Shiro audibly heaved a breath, but by now the other man physically in the room was used to Shiro's tendency to mumble and inadvertently react to his imaginary friend. It was no longer a secret to Adam why being Shiro's roommate had such a high turnover rate, no matter how nice he was to look at.

"I know. It's just- isn't it annoying to act dumb?" Keith questioned, then leaned closer to the page. Despite his best intentions to just think the gesture, Shiro shrugged.

'Well, people already think I'm crazy,' Shiro thought, cracking a smile and huffing as he managed this time to only think about the laugh he would tack on at the end of that.

"Hey, Shiro?" Keith asked, pointing at a spot on the page. Shiro glanced down to look as well. "How does this part match to the other end? This weird little balcony thing woul-"

"Shit, you're right," Shiro replied out loud. He leaned over to erase the windowsill box. Better not to include that in the basic plan. There was already the matter of how he was going to plan out the window itself to be something optional.

"I figured you'd just plot the studs as a guideline first, like usual. Shiro, you seem tired." Keith had noticed Shiro was slipping up more often as his midterms loomed. Responding to him out loud and making gestures rather than just thinking about them. He worried about how much Shiro did in an average week already. Tutoring, classes, a research position, and finally what he called his 'real job' at a nearby gas station.

'I'm fine,' Shiro thought, but he did put his pencil down. 'Maybe we could lay down for a bit, though. I could put on headphones.'

Keith smiled and kicked his legs a bit. Motion kept Shiro's attention. "I'd like that," he admitted, almost coyly. Shiro rolled his eyes and reached for his music player and headphones.

"Laying down for a bit?" Adam asked.

"Mmhmm," Shiro answered casually. "I'll try not to fall asleep."

Adam chuckled at him, mostly teasing when he responded with, "Good night, Takashi." Keith's annoyed, bristling reaction was more than palpable, even if he wasn't currently visible as Shiro neglected to answer, trying to decide between actual music and white noise. Ambient music seemed like an acceptable compromise.

Shiro did gave a friendly nod to Adam, at least, as he put on his headphones and started the music. Then he got up to move to his bed, slipping under the covers and pulling them all the way up over his head, so that he was free to inadvertently make any expression that happened to come up.

With the constant aural and visual stimulation of the real world blocked out, Shiro could better focus inward.

* * *

"Here again?" Shiro asked, floating in what seemed to be the void of space. Keith was standing across from him, leaned against a convenient outcropping of coalesced starstuff.

"It's the easiest place for you to hold onto in this state, I think... I've told you before, this is your brain," Keith replied with a shrug, pushing off to walk, or maybe float, closer. Shiro watched with the same reverence he always had, once they'd learned to do this. First on accident, in Shiro's more memorable dreams, and then slowly as a learned skill. Somehow, things always seemed to end up or start here. The distant stars provided both solitude and an ethereal illumination that made Keith's hair shimmer at the tips.

Shiro shivered, breath shallowing, as Keith came close enough to reach out and grasp Shiro's shoulders, pulling them close with all the fluidity of a stalking feline. Shiro was aware of the ghost sensation of Keith's chest against his, and he used that to center himself as he imagined the way he'd start gripping at Keith's gorgeous, tiny waist in return.

Shiro's hands twitched, where he was under a blanket in the real world. But in the mindscape, Keith had gasped, his hands loosely wrapping around Shiro's wrists. "Missed me?" he asked, smirking cockily. Shiro made a soft, non-committal noise, but he was watching carefully as he directed his thumbs to push up under the hem of Keith's tight shirt, tracing the sensitive jut of hipbones.

"You looked cute sitting on my desk like that. Swinging those long legs around in these tight jeans... it's a good thing nobody else can see you, baby. I'd get jealous," the way Shiro's voice momentarily darkens at that last word so possessively makes Keith shiver.

"Yeah?" he almost stammers out, just wanting to goad Shiro on. He already knows where this is going, which is the reason he pushes for Shiro to say it, one more time.

"My perfect, ideal boy, and all mine. Nobody else can even know you, baby. I could do anything I wanted to you," when Shiro talks like this, Keith knows it would come off as creepy to anybody but them. Keith, though, blushes prettily and peers up at him.

"I know, Shiro. I'm so lucky," he breathed. He didn't have a choice anyway, this was ultimately Shiro's brain and Shiro's body. There'd never been any contest about it, they'd just naturally fallen into the roles of Captain and co-pilot when it came to the vessel.

Shiro slides the shirt up a bit, untucking it entirely. He bites his lip and spins them around in the mindscape so that he can roll onto his front in the real world.

"Yeah?" Keith teases once more, smirking cockily now. Shiro usually rolls onto their front just before he starts to get hard. He raises his arms and lets Shiro pull his shirt off, still looking smug even with his hair slightly tossled by the motion. Shiro reaches for a wayward lock of hair and smooths it back behind Keith's ear before tugging him in close enough that their lips meet. In between raining kisses down on Keith's lips along with the rest of his face, Shiro makes small, happy murmuring noises. "Sometimes this is all I want, you know?" he asks rhetorically.

"That's fine. We have time," Keith whispers back, but he still impulsively wraps his legs around the back of Shiro's thighs and grinds his hips forward, slow and sinuous with intent. They're fully connected, so as Shiro's cock swells and rises to the occasion Keith whines as he follows suit.

"Greedy boy," Shiro groans, biting at his jaw at the end of the next kiss. "Always begging for my attention. I should be working, you know."

"I waited 'til you were pretty much done, and you know that," Keith argues, even as his breath hitches each time Shiro nips at him. He feels the exhale of a chuckle against his neck in response.

* * *

Adam tried to ignore the shuffling and the murmuring coming from Shiro's bed at first, he really did. He'd already brought it up once before. Shiro had gotten somewhat defensive even as he admitted that he was 'spending time' with Keith when that happened. Adam had readily agreed to the idea that it didn't affect anyone else, so it wasn't a big deal.

This, however. It was becoming somewhat obvious that they'd gone beyond cuddling at this point. He kept huffing and shifting. As soon as he hears a soft moan from the occupied bed...

"Shiro!" Adam cries out, banging down his pencil with more force than is maybe necessary. It does the trick, as Shiro jolts and then sits up, staring hard and mean at Adam like he's just interrupted something important.

"Can you at least go to the bathroom for _that_?" he asks. Shiro at least has the decency to blanch and nod in acquiesce once he realizes he's been too blatantly obvious. Adam struggles not to think about it any more than that as Shiro sheepishly shuffles to the bathroom and pointedly locks the door, turns on the shower, and then puts some weird spacey music on over the shared bathroom speaker for good measure.

He tries, but he fails not to imagine it, even if only briefly. He finds his thoughts tinged with jealousy however, as he has to keep reminding himself that whatever he's doing in there is likely at the behest of Keith. He eventually put on his own headphones to drown out Shiro's noise. He does steal a glance over to Shiro's desk, once, eyes lingering on the drawing peeking out from under the homework. Messy dark hair and piercing light-colored eyes caught and held his attention.

Quashing down the guilty feeling, Adam reached over and wiggled it free for a closer look. He's seen enough of Shiro's artwork that this is just another one starring Keith, to Adam. He has to admit that Keith _is_ attractive, in a sort of... wild, otherworldly way. Ethereal and always vaguely threatening, someone who gave off the feeling of being potentially dangerous unless handled carefully. He didn't know whether or not that's how their actual dynamic went, though. Shiro was always a little defensive, a little secretive, when it came to his muse. Adam couldn't fault him that - it went unsaid, but the hints were there that Shiro had suffered at least some verbal abuse in the past over his unconventional relationship.

He did have to marvel at Shiro's technical skill, the carefully crosshatched shading made his topic look even more striking and angular, as if caught midflash during a tense moment in a lightning storm. That was his most common style, picked up from years of reading comics and it translated well to the carefully-chosen angles and delineated sections of architectural design. It suited Keith well enough, Adam supposed.

A hand on his shoulder made him jump. Shiro had apparently finished up and snuck out while he was wearing his own headphones and snooping thru his roommate's desktop. He flushed, caught red-handed. Shiro said something, but it was lost under the music ringing in Adam's head. Jerking the earbuds out, he stammered, "H-huh?"

"I said," Shiro inhaled slowly, his hand tightened against Adam's shoulder. "You should ask first, if you want to look. That one's just a doodle."

"You'd let me?" Adam asked, somehow unable to believe it, even as Shiro offered first.

"I'd rather show you, than have you just go digging through my things," he said carefully, and Adam felt that guilty feeling flare back up as he realized he'd never dropped the doodle of Keith. He finally set it aside. "Before I do, though... I need you to understand that you can't make me stop. You can't replace him, and you can't 'embody' him..." Shiro's voice was low, careful. Like all these warnings were untold stories. Adam got the distinct feeling he wasn't the one being spoken to, not entirely.

"This is what you want. I don't- I'm not looking to judge you on that, Takashi. I'm just trying to understand- what you see in this-"

"Keith doesn't like it when you call me that," Shiro suddenly blurted out. Adam paused and blinked, taken off-guard by what he was saying. Then he started to feel a deep sense of suspicion.

"What else does Keith say about me?" his tone suggested that he was ready to dislike the answer.

"He doesn't like the way you flirt with me," Shiro answered with a shrug, as if he wasn't just explaining some sort of weird dismissal of Adam's advances. "The rest is personal, if you don't mind-"

"If I don't mind," Adam echoed, plugging his earbuds back in to go back to his own work. "I'll think about your offer, Shirogane," he said, a bit too loud thanks to the renewed drone of his own music that drowned it out.

Shiro stretched and went to bed, intent on not letting Adam sour his afterglow as he settles back into cuddling with Keith while drifting to sleep.

* * *

They didn't talk about it for a while, there'd been no time to waste until after finals were over. There was also the new professional distance between the two of them to factor in - they lived as dormmates Washington and Shirogane, rather than Adam and Takashi. Only after he got his grades back (passing with excellence) did Adam consider bringing up the imaginary elephant in the room.

He stared at the unsent message on his phone, trying to decide what set of words would seem least foreboding. "We need to talk about Keith," was definitely too directly worded, but he didn't really want it to come off as a request that Shiro could decline either. He ultimately settled for 'I want to know more about Keith' and pressed send.

He knew that Shiro was probably on his way back from one of his weekend jogs around the campus. Sometimes, Shiro wouldn't hear his phone over the ambient noise, so he didn't expect to see his phone light up with a response right away. 'Okay? What u want to know?' he used shorthand text while exercising. Adam probably wouldn't get many answers like this.

'It'd be easier to talk about it here.' he sent back. This time, there was no answer until Shiro physically showed back up, sweaty with exertion. He took a quick rinse, then collasped onto their shared couch, taking the time to stretch out along the rest of it.

Adam kept himself busy with his game station until Shiro broke the silence first.

"So what did you want me to tell you, exactly?" Shiro questioned once more. Adam thought about this, he had a few different questions. "How exactly did you meet him?"

Shiro shrugged. "It's been like this since I can remember. I think we were born together, or something."

"Huh. Wouldn't that make you brothers?" Adam wondered. Shiro blanched and shook his head in response.

"Not like that."

"Okay. So, he's only in your head, right? So how does he look a certain way?" Adam unconsciously motioned to Shiro's desk, where the majority of his doodles were still hiding.

"He just does," Shiro responded with another blase shrug. "Besides, that goes for a lot of stuff. Mickey Mouse-"

"I'm not a cartoon character, Shiro. Geeze," Keith interjected, and though Adam obviously didn't hear it, he did see the way that Shiro had suddenly stopped talking and started listening, as if interrupted.

"What did he say?" Adam blurted out as the thought came to him. Shiro blinked, tilted his head like he wasn't expecting that.

"He said he's not a cartoon character." Shiro responded quietly. "Nobody's ever actually asked me _that_ before."

"What?" Adam questioned, unsure.

"What he said. What he thinks. It's always questions about how I deal with it, like they assume he tells me to do bad stuff or something. I didn't expect you to actually want to know about him."

"Well, it's like... having another roommate. Except this one wasn't leaving dirty dishes hidden under his desk," Adam shot Shiro a dirty look as he said that, though it was softened with a fondness to the exasperation. Shiro chuckled self-consciously.

"Okay, okay. Can I tell you something about Keith, then? He likes going on the jogs and lifting the weights more than I do. That's why sometimes we don't answer my phone."

"He jogs? But how-"

"He possesses me. Think of the body," Shiro motioned to himself, "as a ship. Most people only have the one pilot, themselves. So there's no need to differentiate between the vessel and who's running it. But for whatever reason, there's two capable pilots in here. I'm usually the one in the driver's seat, but not always."

For some reason, that idea set Adam on edge. He thought back to the clipped, short texts he _would_ occasionally receive when Shiro was busy jogging or at the gym. They never matched up with how Shiro otherwise typed, but he'd always chalked that up to Shiro being busy and/or getting tired. "So if I do get an answer..."

"You've technically texted Keith, yeah. We can-" he paused a moment, "I can try to be more transparent about that, if it would help."

"Yeah," Adam agreed, and added on somewhat smarmily, "I like knowing who I might be talking to, if it's not you."

"Do you think I'm crazy?" Shiro asked, his voice tinged with sudden hesitation.

"Uhm," Adam stared at the open, searching look on Shiro's face. This wasn't a discussion that happened often, he could tell. His choice at this set of crossroads would define how him and Shiro got along from here on out. "Look, this is- it's not something I'm used to. But I don't think you're crazy, really! I mean... I always did wonder how you took on the workload of two people, so actually..." Adam took a steadying breath, "actually, it makes sense."

"It makes sense?" Shiro echoed in disbelief. He'd never heard that before, ever. He could feel that Keith agreed with his sentiment.

"Do you think he means it? You think we can trust him?" Keith asked, looking over Adam with renewed interest. Shiro silently considered that as well. Keith had always been disinterested at best, when it came to outside people.

"Yeah," Shiro finally said, outloud, to both of them. "This might actually work out."

* * *

Even with their threeway truce going on, it was still hard for Adam to comprehend the minutiae of Shiro and Keith's set up. But generally, he figured out from the clues, whenever Shiro had one of his quiet spells, whether he simply went for a run, went to the gym by himself, or sat around and played video games... it wasn't actually Shiro at the helm in those moments. The gaming, however, was a new development.

He'd never seen Shiro playing on the system, always assumed that the other man simply didn't know or care how to operate it. So he'd honestly expected someone else to be there when his dorm was awash in the sounds of the latest action game he'd just bought upon opening the door.

Shiro had paused it as soon as the lock clicked free, and was now looking back at him with a weird, almost calculating expression. He grimaced briefly, and then spoke.

"I made my own file, don't worry," his voice was strained and quiet, like it didn't fit quite right at the moment. With this particular game, pausing it would throw up the status of the player character. Something pulled Adam's gaze to the screen just long enough to read the main character's player-chosen name. KEITH, written in all caps.

"Shiro doesn't play video games. You're Keith."

"I'll save and qu-" Keith muttered, turning to the controller.

"Wait," Adam quickly said, and Keith went still quickly. "It's fine. You can play. I can... leave you to it?" he wasn't sure what else he could suggest. It was more than a little disconcerting, watching what looked like his dormmate Shiro just nod briskly and mumble out an 'Alright,' as he went back to slaughtering demon nazis.

Adam went to his desk and tried to focus on his reading. He found himself drawn to observing Keith, though, finding the differences were actually quite startling.

When Shiro got annoyed, which was a rare thing in and of itself, he might frown slightly, look mildly disgruntled... a particularly egregious situation could garner a heavy, put-upon sigh. He was known for his patience with things.

As Keith got to some of the harder sections of the game, however, he started to stare hard at the screen, but before long that stare turned into a glare as the game started to win, rather than him. Once the central character actually hit the point where his health was critically low, Keith _snarled_, and it was a vicious sound that came out of the depths of Shiro's chest. A nazi got the final drop on him. As his character died, Keith rolled his eyes and grumbled, finger already tapping impatiently at the button to retry that section before it even showed the prompt to do so.

"Uhh," Adam hummed. Keith shot a look at him, but kept playing. "You should use your fire attacks on these guys. You're in the frozen part of hell now, so the water attacks aren't as effective."

"Okay," Keith answered, pulling up the menu to reassign his character's attacks.

"Don't get too close to that one that jumps, especially when you're low on health." he said, referring to the enemy that Keith had ultimately lost to before. "Use your gun blasts on him."

Keith quickly readjusted his tactics, pulling through the section near-perfectly on his second try. He saved and quit at the next opportunity. "I'm done," he said, still as quiet and tightly-spoken as before. "It'll be Shiro who comes back out," he then said. Before Adam could even think to ask, Keith ducked into the bathroom.

He heard the shower come on, followed by the weird spacy music, similar to but different from the last time he'd heard that kind of music. Maybe that was Keith's music, not Shiro's. He wasn't sure what kind of music Shiro listened to, now that he thought about it. Shiro always used headphones.

Adam wasn't sure what to say when Shiro came back out, but to his surprise he could now even see the difference in just the way each of them had held the body. Keith had been taking smaller, quieter steps on his way to the bathroom, staring resolutely ahead at his main objective - first the game, and then the bathroom door. Shiro came back out looser, his footsteps carrying more thud, glancing around for a split second before he honed in on where Adam was still sitting.

Shiro bit his lip, and let out a nervous breath. He looked somewhat embarrassed, though Adam wasn't entirely sure why. "Thanks," Shiro finally actually said, letting his lip go to give Adam a tiny smile.

"For?" Adam questioned.

"For not freaking out," his smile grew as he added on, "and for letting him play your system. He's been bugging me to try it for him since you brought it in."

"Oh," Adam smiled back, "well, I don't mind. You guys could set up your own account on it, too. Accounts?"

Shiro made a non-committal noise at the time. However, Adam turned on his system later that week to find that it now prompted him to choose from two different accounts during start-up. His own, along with a second one. The randomly-generated screenname hadn't been changed yet (probably, HippoHatF7U didn't sound like a proper username to him anyway,) but the account was registered to the 'real name' of Keith Shirogane. After logging into his own, Adam sent off a friend request to that account as a show of support.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith makes some friends of his own

The new gaming account showed regular usage, and the friend request had been accepted. Keith was obviously playing whenever Adam had to be at work in the morning on Mondays (one of the only time periods that Shiro regularly had all to himself) so he hadn't actually seen him again. When he thought about it, Keith only seemed to be fully active in that way whenever they could guarantee their own relative solitude, the closer to being absolute the better. Adam suspected that his first (and so far, only) impromptu walk-in hadn't been an accident on Keith's part.

"Thanks, for not freaking out," had been what Shiro had said, immediately after that. Adam wondered if Keith had shown himself to anybody else before.

Shiro, too, had let down his guard a lot more in private. Apparently, he'd had no clue that the game system was actually an entire entertainment system, able to play any movie at any time. He actually started using it as well, after Keith had apparently showed him that. He talked more openly about their interactions in general. Before, he'd just shrug and claim to have forgotten, or that it was 'just a random thought' whenever he randomly snickered or made sudden noises of understanding. Now, if Adam asked, he'd actually admit that Keith had just said or did something. He actually had a pretty good sense of humor, though sharper than what Adam would normally expect from Shiro.

Keith was also quite the expert in parkour. Shiro would sometimes indicate that he was in places like the auditorium rafters during ceremonies, or following along the tops of buildings whenever they went walking to classes together. Apparently, this was because Keith didn't like it when people inadvertantly 'phased thru' him as they walked around, oblivious to his presence. So he stayed out of the way yet always nearby.

Shiro also showed him a few more drawings, ones that Adam had never seen before. Some were actually old enough that the page itself would be yellowed with age. They were all full-body drawings of Keith, ones where it looked like he'd actually been posing for the drawing. In the latest one, he was in their dorm room, laying across Shiro's bed without a shirt on and giving the viewer a saucy look. In the earliest, a noticeably younger Keith drawn by a beginning artist was sitting shock-straight in an enormous lazy chair, hands balled up on the tops of his legs as he stared out from the paper. "The chair wasn't actually that big," Shiro had said with a self-consciousness chuckle as Adam came upon that one.

Another time, Shiro admitted that his single mom had never really liked or trusted Keith, especially as they got older, which is why he'd be paying the extra fee to stay in his dorm over summer break, rather than head back home as Adam had been originally planning to do. Since Shiro was paying for it anyway, he decided to just visit his family a few times over the summer, since they actually were just in the next town over, and keep living at the dorms aswell. Shiro seemed pretty excited about the prospect when he first brought it up, too.

All in all, things actually were working out just fine between the three of them, just like Shiro had proclaimed at the start of this. Even if Keith himself still kept his distance from Adam, at least Shiro finally had somebody to talk to about it, an actual friend and not some professional being paid to listen.

* * *

The summer season lightened their loads considerably. Once Keith had observed Adam's continuing work schedule for a while and figured out when that didn't overlap with their own job, he started to play video games more and more often, whenever he could get away with it really. Shiro didn't mind, it gave him a lot more time to zone out and reset himself mentally, which is what he did whenever Keith was fully in control.

He'd finished the first game he'd played by now, and had switched over to one that was about killing giant beast-like monsters, rather than demon nazis. It was multiplayer, too. Four players would team up to defeat one colossal enemy, earning rewards towards better equipment that led into more challenging fights. It was a bit grindy, but if anything that kept Keith coming back, trying to gain a new level or two each week. Shiro liked seeing that he had goals, even if they were digital in nature.

The current match was just now finishing up, each player was being presented with their loot. Suddenly, three friend requests popped up in the corner of the screen, one after the other. They were the same usernames he'd just finished up the match with, so Keith went through and accepted all three. Immediately, he received a group invite from the first one, Loverboy6969. Keith rolled his eyes at the name, but accepted the invite.

"Hey Hippo, you got a mic?" Loverboy immediately asked over his own. Keith's eyes darted towards Adam's headset, which he'd never yet used. He could feel that Shiro had checked in momentarily at the sound of a voice, gently coaxing him to 'go ahead, Keith.'

"1 sec," Keith typed into the group text chat, then grabbed the headset and quickly set it up.

"Another match?" a different player asked as he did, going by HelloYellow. He'd actually used his time (and money) to make his character mostly clad in yellow tones.

"Yeah yeah, but lemme restock some potions before you start?" the third player's voice was androgynous enough that Keith couldn't really assume their gender. The username, 314Pidgey15, didn't give any further clue. By now, he'd gotten the headset hooked up and turned on, but had decided to let them all finish talking first.

"Your mic says it's connected now," Loverboy pointed out, louder than the other two, and Keith realized that was directed at him.

"Yeah," he said, simply, checking to make sure that the mic was readily detecting his voice.

"Whoa!" Loverboy responded, for some reason, and then asked, "Do you have a cold, or do you always sound like that?"

The other two players responded to that before Keith bothered to. Pidge claimed, "This is why we can never hang onto a fourth member."

Yellow audibly groaned, and then griped, tiredly, "Lance-"

"Don't use my real name!" Loverboy shrieked. Keith turned down the party chat's volume slightly and the game's volume up.

"Okay, geeze. Anyway, Pidge are you ready?" Yellow redirected the topic.

"Yep," Pidge responded. "What are we going after?"

Keith asked, "Could we hunt a specific one for something I need?"

They all readily agreed.

* * *

Adam came in like usual, but then immediately paused when he realized what he was seeing, and what it meant. Keith was playing games again, but this time it seemed like he'd actually been caught unaware, thanks to the headset he was wearing. Adam slowly moved closer for a better look.

The game was an unfamilar one, likely downloaded since they hadn't brought back any physical games of their own. Keith was playing with other people, actually, at least judging by the one-sided conversation he overheard.

"Quit getting KO'ed! I can't play medic AND do most of the damage!" he snarked. Even though he was talking louder now, his voice still had that strange raspy edge that Shiro normally didn't. Adam could faintly hear a response from somebody over the headphones - he must be listening to it at a fairly high volume for that. "Well, stay away from the tail then!" Keith insisted.

Unthinking, as Adam watched the screen, he settled his hand on the couch with just enough force that Keith noticed and jumped, startling with an immediate snarl. He quickly settled into a more sheepish surprise, however, once he saw that it was just Adam. He still blurted out into the mic, "I gotta go," and adruptly set aside the headset and controller, taking off into the bathroom before Adam could so much as say a word.

"...Keith? Wait, your game-"

"You could just turn it off!" Keith said through the door. Adam saw that the mic was still on, and the other players had begun asking where Hippo had gone. Adam hoped they'd be understanding later as he shut the system off, so that they couldn't overhear anymore. Then he went to the door that Keith had barricaded himself behind.

"I didn't mean to startle you. You looked like you were having fun, but I probably should have made myself more obvious," Adam said to it, hoping that he could be heard beyond.

"I lost track of time," Keith admitted after a while. Adam had remained waiting, for either a response or the sound of that music they used to facilitate a switch. "I never lose track of time." Shiro lost track of his time fairly often, and Adam wondered if Keith was where all that lost time normally ended up.

"You were having fun. It happens. You don't have to stop if you don't want to," Adam told him.

There was another long period of deliberation on Keith's part, before he finally said, "Okay," and approached the bathroom door to open it. Adam backed up and stepped aside, making himself busy in the kitchenette. Keith went back to the game, and Adam happened to oversee, with a bit of relief, that the same group as before quickly re-invited him to join them. They even restarted a new match for him, it looked like.

The match is over with just in time for Adam to be finished making more than enough microwaved rice and chicken for two. It's kind of an accident, but he takes the opportunity. Just as Keith is winding down, getting ready to take off the headset and try to go to the bathroom right away, Adam called out, "Keith? Have you eaten yet?"

"...Shiro usually does that, he had lunch before we switched out." Keith replied, but is eyeing the plate as he does. Which is already interesting, because Adam happens to know that Shiro doesn't really care for meat, especially chicken.

"Do you want to?" he offered. Keith stood and approached, he moves a lot more sinously than Shiro ever would as he leaned down to actually look at the food as if inspecting it.

"Okay," Keith agreed, once more. Adam let out a breath he'd been holding.

Minutes later, Keith is already halfway through his helping, and has already picked out and specifically eaten most of the chicken. "I don't know _what_ Shiro has against this, it's so good," he remarked during one of the few moments he doesn't have rice or chicken in his mouth. This, in and of itself, is what finally and utterly convinced Adam that they really are two different people - Shiro wouldn't be caught dead with rice stuck to his chin by chicken grease. Would never eat so quickly, either, wolfing down overflowing spoonfuls of more like he'd never been properly fed. Maybe he never had, afterall it sounded like only Shiro ever had food before.

Afterwards, though, there's nothing else to distract Keith with when he asked, "Thanks for the meal, but do you mind if I...?" and motioned toward the bathroom door.

"Sure," Adam said. "I really don't mind when you're around, though, so don't leave on my account."

"It's not that. I just can't hold on like this for a long time," Keith explains, and Adam nods, not really understanding all that much but accepting enough of the fact he didn't. It doesn't feel as weird this time when Keith goes to the bathroom and the space music starts up.

* * *

It's the Fourth of July, Adam was staying with his family over the full weekend and that left them home alone. Keith had settled into his game, eager to put a real dent in the progress towards his next few upgrades.

"So you live in the US, huh?" Yellow asked idly. "I can hear the fireworks over your mic. Nowhere better to be?"

"The two of you are here too," Keith retorted playfully. Both Yellow and Loverboy were playing tonight, but Pidge was MIA - the other two said she'd left with her family earlier in the day. He'd been playing with the same group long enough to learn that they all actually lived together, splitting the rent three ways.

"Hey! Anyway, be quiet you guys, I'm trying to hear something." Loverboy said, and they all fell silent for a while.

"I don't hear anyth-" Keith started to claim. They were in between matches, so he didn't know what they were supposedly listening for anyway.

"Sssh! I think it's starting."

Nothing was starting, except for the city firework show outside his window. "Can you hear that? Listen. They're all happening at the same time."

"What are you talking about?" Yellow asked, clearly at as much of a loss as Keith was.

"The _fireworks_, you guys. Hunk, watch the fireworks and listen to Hippo's mic."

"Dude, really?" Yellow asked, whether in disbelief of Loverboy's claims or his namedrop. "Huh, well I'll be. It matches up exactly, what are the chances."

"What _are_ the chances? Dude, we live in the same place! Platt City, yeah? We could all meet up!" Loverboy sounded downright ecstatic. Keith immediately turned off the system and went to the bathroom to switch back out with Shiro.

"I think I messed up," he claimed while they're doing that. Shiro assured him that it'll be fine. Nothing will come of it, probably. They'll either forget about or drop the issue.

Of course it's not that easy to drop, now that Loverboy knows where he lives he keeps asking when they're all gonna hang out 'for real' at least once every time they play. Keith dodges the question more narrowly each time, until one day... 

"Come on dude. The convention is the perfect opportunity!" Loverboy insisted.

"I can't afford it," Keith argued.

"I could afford two passes," Pidge offered without a beat. "You'd just need to tell me your real name, and it's done."

He doesn't want to meet up with them, doesn't know if he can hang onto control of the body for as long as he might need to, in that kind of situation. He especially doesn't want to explain the nature of his existence. He's told him that he lives with his boyfriend and their roommate, and he'd prefer to keep it to being that simple.

Maybe it can be. "My boyfriend wouldn't let me," he tried.

"Your boyfriend could come, too," Yellow said assuredly. Keith shook his head, though they wouldn't see that. Obviously they weren't getting it.

"Come on~" Loverboy pressed. "Just a quick meetup at a coffee shop while we're at the con. Give us something, man."

Keith sighed, considering it. A quick outting could be possible, he could stay out for at least a few hours at a time by now, between his normal exercise sessions and the rapidly-lengthening periods of time spent gaming whenever Adam did head out for a few days. "I guess we could do that..." he finally gave in.

The others cheered, and then the whole party all agreed on a time and place. A small, locally-owned cafe that was close to the convention center, but not right next to it, that way it wouldn't be too horribly crowded.

"So is your boyfriend gonna come too, then?" Pidge questioned.

"Ah..." Keith floundered for a second, "no, probably not. He... doesn't like coffee." He's lying, Shiro lives on caffeine.

"Man, I can't wait to actually meet you, Hippo. By the way, is your name really Keith?" Yellow asked.

"Yeah, it is," Keith answered. They were already wrapping up for the night, so after that they all bid their farewells before logging off.

In the bathroom, Keith asked, "Shiro, could we lay down for a while when we get out? I need to talk to you."

* * *

Shiro went to the starfield in his mind, looking around and furrowing his brows in confusion when he didn't see Keith waiting for him, as usual. "Keith?" he asked.

"I really messed up now," Keith said, voice echoing around with no discernable origin, like how he first started talking. "They talked me into meeting up with them. I shouldn't've- they're going to find out I'm not real if you show up instead!" he sounded scared, which Shiro had never heard before.

"Keith, baby. It's okay, stop hiding. You can do this, if you want to. I like it that you have your own friends."

"Yeah?" Keith asked, from behind. Shiro turned, to his relief he found that Keith had decided to materialize, and he stepped forward to envelope him in a hug. "So, I can just... go meet them? As myself? That wouldn't bother you?"

"Why would it bother me?" Shiro asked him honestly as he pulled back to look at him, but kept his hands on Keith's arms.

"It's your body, not mine. What if, say, one of them sees _you_ around town, but thinks it's me?"

"I doubt that'll happen," Shiro assured him. "You said before that none of them are in school, and where else do we even really go?"

"I guess you're right... and it would be kind of cool, I guess, to actually meet them..." Keith admitted.

"Go, be great," Shiro insisted.

* * *

Keith plucked at the red handkerchief he was wearing around his neck. They'd all agreed to wear different colored ones, in order to make it easier for them to find him. Or, as it turned out, the other way around - he found them, first. Two guys and a girl, obviously in a group. He watched them as they ordered, standing away from the counter himself so that they might not notice him immediately.

Loverboy was just as lanky as Keith had always imagined, but tan with short-cropped brown hair. He had his blue handkerchief tucked into the pocket of his polo shirt, just barely peeking out. Pidge had her green one tied around her wrist, she looked either younger or shorter than he had always assumed. Yellow, of course, had the yellow handkercheif... tied around his forehead, like a headband. He was the biggest of the three by far, in both height and width.

The jig was up once they all placed their orders and turned around. Yellow was the first to notice, he nudged at Pidge and then nodded to the man watching them. Pidge's eyes lit up when she saw the handkerchief around his neck, and then was running full-tilt straight at Keith, calling out "_You're_ Hippo!?" just before she flung herself at him.

'Maybe this wasn't a good idea,' Shiro's voice was the unheard one now, as he thought that.

"What?" Keith inadvertantly asked aloud, suddenly understanding just how difficult not doing that really was.

'That's Matt's baby sister,' was what Shiro had informed him.

At the exact same time, but with far more enthusiasm, Pidge looked up at him and said, "I'm Matt's little sister!"

Shiro was surprised that the girl remembered him, he'd only been Matt's friend for... well, most of their primary schooling actually. Still, she'd been pretty young at the time. They'd fallen out of touch after the Holts moved away.

Matthew had been the first person, other than his mother, that Shiro willfully told about Keith. Being a very logical person who needed evidence that things existed, Matt always had trouble comprehending the idea of it, and the ribbing got worse as they got older.

In particular, Shiro thought back to a particularly biting statement Matt had once made to him, regarding the situation. "You know, Katie told me she got bored of _her_ imaginary friend last week. She's 4. Maybe, you should consider-"

Shiro had told him to drop it and then went home. Truthfully, that was the beginning of the end for their friendship. He had to wonder what Katie, or 'Pidge' as Keith had met her, knew of their falling out.

"Don't you remember me?" Pidge asked, furrowing her brows at him. Frankly, Keith himself didn't so much. So he just tried to give her an apolgetic look as he shrugged. "Whatever, I remember you, _Taka_. Why'd you lie about your name?"

"Hold up! You know this guy? And he gave us a fake name? What the heck, man!" Loverboy suddenly barged in on the conversation, a drink in each hand. He handed the darker brown one off to Pidge.

"I didn't lie," Keith insisted, shaking his head. "Keith is what I go by now."

"That's such a random name change," Pidge responded, "but alright."

Yellow finally caught up, his drink looked especially extravagant. "Hey man, you gonna get anything?" he asked, motioning to his own cup.

"Oh," Keith looked to the counter, seeing that the line wasn't long at all. "Yeah, I'll go get something."

"We'll find a place to sit while you do that," Loverboy called as he dragged Pidge to the nearest four-seat table. Keith found himself a bit overwhelmed once he got to the front, realizing that a coffee shop served a whole lot more than just coffee. Luckily, the cashier seemed to notice she had a first-timer on her hands, and hooked him up with her favorite drink, a caramel frap. He swiftly returned to the table his friends had taken up.

"Hold on, before you sit! Hunk, stand up too. I wanna see which one of you is taller." Loverboy told them as Keith approached. Keith paused, letting Yellow, otherwise known as Hunk, stand next to him. Loverboy and Pidge both observed them carefully, ultimately determining that they'd finally found somebody just a hair taller than Hunk.

"Buffer, too. You work out?" Loverboy also wanted to know, his own lack of personal space prompting him to reach out and squeeze one of Keith's crossed biceps. Keith turned slightly to shrug off the contact.

Still, he replied with a quick, "Yeah."

"Lance, please don't try to flirt with our new friend," Pidge warned as Keith and Hunk both sat.

"I'm not- you're the one who thought it!" Lance squawked in indignation. "I only said like, one thing that could be taken that way, and I didn't even mean it! Keith isn't even that hot," he was an animated speaker, ending his statement by pointedly crossing his arms and turning to the side, to put his back to Pidge. In retaliation, Pidge shoved hard at his shoulder, very nearly sending him to the floor.

Keith ducked his head and took a long drink of his frappuccino, which he honestly didn't particularly care for. "You get used to it, they're always like that," Hunk said, patting his back.

He actually did, fairly quickly, and really enjoyed the time they spent talking and getting to know one another. Still, by the time things were winding down and they were getting ready to part ways, Keith was _tired_. He'd done more in this day than ever before, afterall. Interacting face-to-face with people, even people he'd wanted to, took a lot out of him. Traveling within the body had also brought about it's own set of complications. He couldn't wink in and out of physical existence in order to stay away from the crowds.

'I'll get us home,' Shiro told him as he worried about it. There was a locking public bathroom, so Keith went there to switch out after his friends had left. He was glad to get the opportunity, able to take his time to think over what had just happened as Shiro checked his phone on the busride home.

Keith could only hope he really hadn't messed up.

**Author's Note:**

> Im gonna be honest with u guys... i normally dont post wips, and right now i honestly cant tell u with 100% certainty where this is going...
> 
> If u wanna chat about that, or anything else related to gay voltron stuff or whatever, you should check out this discord server i made [right here](https://discord.gg/FP8DpAt)


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